17/09/2025

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WEDNESDAY | SEPT 17, 2025

‘Go green, hire hospitality experts’

marketing. Kien said, “It’s truly encouraging to receive international recognition alongside our brand partners. As marketing trends evolve rapidly, we remain committed to content-first strategies that tap into local culture and community insights. “XHS seeding marketing has become a rising force across the region. With over three million users in Malaysia alone, it’s no longer just a platform; it’s a crucial gateway that profoundly influences purchasing behaviour. “We believe this wave of social conversion is key for brands to create real, lasting value.” Hashtag Asia Awards is one of the region’s most influential accolades, recognising excellence in social and content marketing. The 2025 edition brought together top brands and agencies from across Asia, including Singapore, Malaysia, Hong Kong, the Philippines, Indonesia and Thailand, marking a competitive and star studded showcase of innovation. “Our win on XHS marketing and seeding shows the strength of our Chinese-market experience. “We focus on authentic campaigns and community trust, and this award is really thanks to the support and confidence of our brand partners,“ Kien said. flation and technology. Malaysia’s national hotel occu pancy rate was just 54.9% in 2024, with sharp disparities between prime markets such as Genting Highlands (95.7%) and struggling secondary locations. “Almost half of the hotels in Malaysia are empty at any point in time. Overbuilding in certain loca tions is a clear threat,” he said. At the same time, inflation in construction materials and man power costs is eroding margins, while room rates remain stubbornly stag nant. Cost management, he argued, will be the true differentiator in delivering sustainable yields. Finally, while artificial intelligence (AI) promises efficiency, over reliance could damage hospitality’s very essence. “No guest at a luxury hotel wants to fiddle with a self check-in kiosk after a red-eye flight. AI must support human warmth, not replace it,” Ho said. As Malaysia pushes towards becoming a global tourism hub, hotel investors face a future that will reward those who plan strategically, integrate ESG from the start and adopt professional asset manage ment practices. “The hotel industry is one of the least understood, deliberately shrouded in mystique,” Ho reflected. “Owners must realise that hotels are not just businesses, they’re hybrid assets demanding specialised know ledge. Those who fail to adapt risk not just poor returns, but losing every thing.”

munity trust. “People see it as genuine peer-to peer sharing, not just influencer/key opinion leader ads. That is why it is so effective for product seeding, es pecially among Gen Z and female users in lifestyle and beauty,” he added. Kien said the future of social media belongs to niche communities. “Platforms that combine AI, shopping, and culture with strong community trust will grow fastest. People want a platform that feels personal and relevant.” To a question on what the key advantages and potential risks are associated with leveraging social media for business, Kien said, “the pros are clear – wider reach, speed and building communities. “But the downside is that with free speech, misinformation can spread easily, so users must judge carefully, and brands need to handle authenti city responsibly.” Recently, Attitude Ideology clinched two major accolades at the Hashtag Asia Awards 2025 held in Singapore, for its outstanding inte grated strategies and impactful social content executions. In partnership with Lazada and Watsons Malaysia, the agency showcased its prowess in XHS content seeding and cross-platform “Trial and error is inapplicable when millions are at stake. A hotel asset manager ensures owners don’t end up stuck with a market-inappro priate hotel, in the wrong location, locked into a 30-year lopsided management agreement,” he said. Despite its importance, Malaysia lags behind regional peers in adopting hotel asset management. While groups such as YTL, Berjaya and Sunway have in-house teams, Ho noted that he is currently the only registered Malaysian member of the Hospitality Asset Managers Asso ciation. “Most owners simply don’t even know these services exist,” he said. Looking ahead, Ho expects three major forces to define hotel investment value – location, in Retirement Fund (Incorporated) and the Employees Provident Fund into green assets. Yet, he remains critical of current reporting practices. “We’re seeing random, non-standardised metrics like consumption reported per room, per footfall or per square foot. Some disclosures are tokenistic, cherry picking numbers like ‘trees planted’ one year and omitting them the next. Without proper assurance, the risk of greenwashing is very real.” To navigate this increasingly complex landscape, Ho believes asset managers should be engaged from “Day Zero”. Unlike operators who prioritise revenue, asset managers focus on maximising long-term investment value.

o Hotel investors face future that rewards those who plan strategically, adopt ESG and get asset managers in right from the start: Pragmatique MD

KUALA LUMPUR: As Malaysia’s tourism and hospitality industry eyes a post-Covid pandemic boom, hotel investors are being urged to look beyond traditional profit measures or risk owning assets that could quickly lose value in an evolving market place. “Many investors assume that a profitable hotel automatically tran slates into value creation for owners. That assumption is flawed,” said Pragmatique Sdn Bhd (hotel asset management firm) managing director Dr Timmy Ho. “Profit at the property level doesn’t mean much if ownership costs like taxes, corporate overheads or debt repayments eat into the returns. Only when investors are paid at or above their required rate of return can we say value has been created.” Ho highlighted that owners often underestimate pre-acquisition and pre-opening costs, contingency buffers and specialised compliance requirements. “Imagine finalising your budget and securing a bank loan, only to Ű BY DEEPALAKSHMI MANICKAM sunbiz@thesundaily.com KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia’s digital culture is built around a multi platform and multi-language ap proach, shaped by the nation’s demographics and cultural mix, unlike the situation in many other countries where a single dominant platform defines online interaction. Therefore, when it comes to social media usage, Malaysians stand out for their adaptability and diversity of engagement. Facebook, for example, continues to hold sway among the older generation, serving as a familiar hub for news, community updates and family connections. TikTok, meanwhile, has become the beating heart of Malay-language content, driving trends in lifestyle, entertainment and everyday culture. Malaysian branding and creative marketing agency, Attitude Ideology Sdn Bhd founder and managing director Kien Lim Kien Wei ( pic ) said that at the same time, Xiaohongshu (XHS) is carving out its niche among Chinese-speaking audiences, prized for its review-focused ecosystem and role in shaping consumer choices. “This fragmented yet inter connected pattern is not a weakness – it is Malaysia’s digital strength. The Ű BY JOHN GILBERT sunbiz@thesundaily.com

discover that 5% to 8% more is required for taxes you hadn’t accounted for. Or green compliance costs, some green capex (capital expenditure or capital expense) items are 5% to 20% above their con ventional counterparts,” he said. These blind spots, if left unchecked, can turn even seemingly profitable ventures into financial traps. The danger, Ho warned, lies in entering what he calls a “failing value equation”, where rising expenses and imbalanced management contracts leave investors with returns lower than safer asset classes such as retail or even fixed deposits. “Failure to pay mortgages or coupon payments to bond holders can even result in losing the entire hotel asset to repossession or liquid ation,” he cautioned. While sustainability has often been treated as a marketing tool, Ho argued it is fast becoming a financial necessity. “Going green doesn’t just improve the planet, it helps the bottom line too,” he said. From utility savings and waste reduction to attracting eco-conscious corporate clients, environmental, social and governance-linked (ESG linked) investments are reshaping ability to navigate seamlessly across platforms, languages, and content formats shows a population that is both agile and open to experi mentation. “Compared to other markets where adoption can be slower or more homogenous, Malaysians tend to embrace new apps and online trends with remarkable speed. “Looking ahead, this dynamic is likely to intensify. Over the next three to five years, new platforms are expected to continue entering the scene, while artificial intelligence, e commerce integration, and hyper local content are poised to redefine the way Malaysians interact online,”he told SunBiz . Kien said Malaysians will not only adapt quickly, but will shape these platforms in uniquely local ways, creating one of the most vibrant and diverse social media ecosystems in the region. He said the prevailing social trend today is a shift towards authentic, real life content and content seeding, where people increasingly trust genuine stories over polished ads and turn directly to platforms such as XHS, rather than Google, to discover and decide. Kien noted that Malaysia has about 25–28 million social media users, accounting for around 70–80% of the

competitive advantage. Bursa Malaysia’s new sustain ability reporting mandate is acce lerating this shift. By 2025, companies with market capitalisation of RM2 billion and above must disclose their ESG practices, with smaller players following by 2030. “If a hotel developer ever hopes to receive funding in the future, they will have to be ESG-compliant,” said Ho, pointing to the billions allocated by Ho says hotel investors and owners often underestimate pre-acquisition and pre opening costs, contingency buffers and specialised compliance requirements.

Adaptability, diverse engagement unique to M’sian social media landscape

population, and social media is an integral part of Malaysian daily life. When asked about XHS ex periencing rapid growth, Kien said it is popular because it feels like digital word-of-mouth. “People use it to discover what to buy, where to go, or which brand to trust. And especially for the Chinese-speaking market, it has become the go-to platform for authentic recommendations.” Elaborating on how XHS differentiates itself from other social media platforms in the competitive landscape in Malaysia, Kien said the advantage of XHS is UGC user-generated content and com